


Eternity (one-shot)

by Rose1832



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Afterlife, Ancient Egypt, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, One Shot, Puzzleshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 04:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14440992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose1832/pseuds/Rose1832
Summary: After his final duel with Yugi, Atem was finally able to advance to the Afterlife he'd been chasing for so long. Osiris provided him everything: Comfort, peace, a home.Some things, however, cannot be re-created in the Afterlife. There was still something missing.





	Eternity (one-shot)

Atem awoke to a warm light against his skin, something soft cushioning the curves of his back. He stirred slowly, feeling as though he had come from a long, peaceful sleep. The last thing he could remember was a golden burst of light, walking through a doorway, waving goodbye to his friends, Yugi-

His eyes shot open and he bolted upright, frantically scanning his surroundings for any sign of the boy. Instead, he was greeted with the sight of a courtyard he knew all too well- high sandstone walls, hieroglyphs of scripture he’d learned as a boy engraved in each obelisk, an open space of sky above and doors leading inside all around him. With a breath, he sank back down onto his elbows. That was right- he’d finished his duel with Yugi, said a final goodbye, and moved on for the afterlife he had worked to reach for millennia. Finally, he was free.

_ This must be the afterlife,  _ he thought.  _ This courtyard looks just like the one I played in as a boy.  _ But the Egyptian civilization had changed since then; he’d seen it happen through the eye of the Millennium Puzzle. This courtyard could only exist as a product of some deity, or otherworldly invention. He’d always been told that the afterlife of a deserving noble was one of eternal happiness- Osiris must have judged him worthy, though of this he held no memory. Osiris had read in his memories that his happiest time, the time he had always yearned for, had been exactly this: His home. He scanned the empty courtyard again.

Something was still missing.

Atem knew precisely what had yet to be found here. He sighed, the warm, dry air a grace after the cold and stale atmosphere of the Puzzle. No, what he wanted here most would not be found, and he knew this with a sinking feeling in his heart. He shifted himself upwards, sliding his feet off of the small, cushioned podium on which he had awoken. Indeed, what he wanted here the most he had turned away from to get here. The soles of his feet hit soft clay.

_ I suppose this eternity will have to do. _

With the straight, authoritative shoulders of a prince, he marched forward into what had once been his home.

 

Each room was exactly as he had remembered it, down to the last detail. Every plant in the corridors, every inscription or accidental mark left in the walls from where he played. It was better than memory: It was replica. Osiris had paid close attention, he supposed.

As he rounded the corner into his last unexplored hallway, a door at the end stopped him in his tracks. This door had been where the family servants had slept. It was nothing apart from the rest of the house: Exactly as he remembered it. But there was something about this door that twisted in the pit of his stomach, something that called him to this door. Before he was even aware of it his feet were pounding against the ground as he tore through the hallway, his hand pushing through the door before his fingers registered the touch.

There, before him, stood Yugi Motou, dressed in old servants’ clothes and beaming brighter than the sunshine outdoors. Atem’s jaw loosened and something welled in his chest, his vision suddenly blurry with tears. His knees collided with the hard ground and his hands soon followed as he wept openly, now bowing before the small boy he had left behind. He had been so afraid, inside, dreading the moments when he would lose his beloved Aibou, and there he was after all; it was too much for the pharaoh to take at once and he wept on, bowing deeply to the boy he had loved.

“Atem,” spoke the boy with all the softness he had used in life, “I am not the boy you once possessed. I am not Yugi Motou.”

Atem’s head lifted, a newly heavy feeling weighting in his chest. Perhaps a part of him had known this, and perhaps this was why it had been to overwhelming- after all, Yugi Motou was very much alive, and therefore could not join him in death. He steadied his breathing, raising himself to stand on his knees like a slave begging for freedom. When at last he felt he could speak again, he asked, “Who is it that you are?”

The boy offered a hand to the pharaoh, who took it gratefully, pressing his forehead to it and relishing the memories that came with. He saw flashes of his life with Yugi, laughter, comfort, love, understanding. “I am the part of Yugi Motou that you took with you,” explained the boy, and Atem could feel in his heart that this was true. “When you left him, you took with you a piece of his soul. You feel this with you, and he feels it missing. I am not Yugi Motou, but I am a piece of him.”

At this, Atem’s tears returned, and he clung desperately to the boy’s chest as he cried.

 

“What can you tell me?” Atem asked one day, as they walked together through the many acres surrounding the palace.

“What is it you would like to know?” Replied the boy, the boy who was not quite Yugi.

“Something,” Atem decided. “Anything. How is...he?” He had not been able to bring himself to say the name yet, though it had been what felt like many weeks.

The not-Yugi looked up at the unwaveringly clear sky, thoughtfully. “Yugi is alright. He’s aged, but no more than a handful of years. He is in good health.”

“Tell me about him,” Atem insisted, unable to stop the pleading tone spilling from his lips. The not-Yugi did not seem to mind.

“He still lives with his grandfather, pursuing higher studies. He’s become quite famous.” The not-Yugi smiled. “He’s traveled to Egypt once, during the hot months of summer. His grandfather took him.”

Atem felt a dampness on his cheeks yet again. He was unable to resist smiling.

 

It had become their ritual, by now. Each morning Atem would approach the not-Yugi, and they would spend the day in companionship until the night had fallen. For a long time they would laugh together during the daytime, and spend evenings walking the grounds of the estate. Atem would always arrive at the same request- “Tell me about him,” and the not-Yugi would deliver, never going into detail but always fulfilling his questions. At times, not-Yugi was indistinguishable from the real Yugi. They had the same laugh, the same humor; they could pout the same and cry the same, and Atem found that a hole in his chest was beginning to fill.

 

One morning, as a rare shower of rain was falling outside, Atem awoke in his chambers with the same routine in mind as always. He never took care to dine in the mornings, for he found in the Afterlife he did not need it- menial tasks were far less enjoyable by himself, anyway. He made his way from his chambers down the hallway he frequented the most now, nearly ignored in his boyhood but something of a lifeline to him now. He reached the end of the hall, as always, and gently rapped on the door of the not-Yugi’s chambers before slowly pushing it aside, announcing his presence. The not-Yugi, however, was not where it usually stood.

Rather than be stood in the center of the room, brightly awaiting the day to begin, the not-Yugi was pacing earnestly, examining every corner of the room with intense curiosity. This was not, however, the first thing that struck Atem; rather than the usual plain garments the not-Yugi adorned, the boy was now dressed in all the metallic workings of royalty, not unlike those that Atem had awoken in quite some time ago.

“Yugi?” Atem called out curiously, having recently taken to calling it by his name. The eyes that met him were bright and full, curious and confused and sparkling and Atem felt his knees weaken in a way they hadn’t done since the day of his arrival. These were not the eyes of the imitator.

“Yugi?” He gasped again, his voice hoarse this time. He dared not let himself hope, dared not-

The arms around him were full and warm and  _ real,  _ real in a way he’d been starved for, and the hole in his chest he had learned to ignore was fuller than it had ever been. “Yugi,” he found himself whispering, disbelief and joy all in one. “Yugi- Yugi, it’s me…”

“Pharaoh,” sobbed Yugi’s voice, with a unique fluctuation the imitation had only been able to reach for, like trying to remember a dream. “Pharaoh, I missed you so much-”

“I’m here, Yugi,” he heard himself saying, almost as disbelieving as the other boy was. “You’ve returned to me, and I’m here-”

“ _ Pharaoh,”  _ And a pair of petal-soft lips were against his, a beam of sunlight illuminating the room through a window.

 

“I kept duelling,” Yugi was explaining, and Atem had heard no more beautiful a sound in his lifetime. “I made it a career, then went back to school after Grandpa passed. History,” They shared a smile. “Ancient Egyptian Studies. You didn’t give me as much of an edge as I thought you might.” Together they beamed, then Atem felt his face fall slightly.

“And...did you ever-”

“No one,” Yugi stopped with an assuring smile, and Atem halted in his tracks as well, their hands not having come unclasped since they’d joined together. “There was always something more important. Duelling, or studies, or working with younger duellists during retirement. I already knew who the most important person was to me,” he added, pulling the pharaoh’s hand in closer, until the two were standing mere inches apart. Atem let a hand float naturally to the side of Yugi’s face, gently running a thumb along his cheekbone until his hand was buried in the boy’s hair, their foreheads pressed together and their faces nearly stuck smiling. A beam of moonlight caressed the ground at their feet.

“Yugi,” Atem sighed, pulling away from a small, light kiss, “What about your family? Your friends? Surely your grandfather must miss you.”

“I thought of that, too, Pharaoh,” Yugi smiled softly. “I realized that this afterlife is what makes a person the happiest. For me, that was finding you,” He squeezed Atem’s larger hand, “But for them...who knows? They could be anywhere, doing whatever fulfills them the most. Perhaps you and I will find them again, Pharaoh,” he smiled, “But for now…”

A warm breeze toyed with the hems of their robes, and the gentle hum of nighttime insects played like music in their ears. Their hands, previously held tightly together, now broke apart only for their arms to embrace in their stead.

“I’d like to explore my eternity with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Send me your thoughts!  
> (tumblr: anonymous-lizard)


End file.
